{"id":2635,"date":"2020-03-04T09:37:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T09:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adspyglass.com\/blog\/?p=2635"},"modified":"2024-01-08T08:22:57","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T08:22:57","slug":"google-nofollow-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adspyglass.com\/blog\/google-nofollow-links\/","title":{"rendered":"Google began to count nofollow links as \u2018hints\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Sunday, Mar. 1, Google has started treating the nofollow link attribute as a hint, rather than a directive, for crawling and indexing purposes. So, should we change the whole linking strategy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

New link attributes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The nofollow attribute was created in 2005 to prohibit click-throughs by search engine bots. This attribute is important for adding links to non-trust resources, or affiliate and advertising hyperlinks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Google announced<\/a> new link attributes for sponsored and user-generated content (UGC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rel=”sponsored”<\/strong> for paid links \u2013 created as a result of advertising, sponsorship and other paid agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rel=”ugc”<\/strong> for links inside UGC content such as comments and forum posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

rel=”nofollow”<\/strong> for a case when you want to add a link but without passing along ranking credit to it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read also: 10 Best Pop-Under Ad Networks 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Why the New Approach?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From the moment Google introduced links as help to webmasters, it has been used for a variety of reasons. A lot of websites began to mark as nofollow every external link. And sure, for Google who uses links for their ranking algorithms, this is a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google\u2019s Gary Illyes and Danny Sullivan have said that the new attributes will help Google understand the web better and allow site owners to mark their links if they want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"nofollow<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The main point is the new approach is completely voluntary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five Basic Facts about New Attributes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. You can mark ads and sponsored links in order to avoid possible link scheme penalties.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. No need to change existing links. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. There can be more than one attribute one link. For example, rel=\u201cugc sponsored\u201d would be okay for a paid link within user generated content.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. If you use the wrong attribute on a link, there would be nothing wrong, except for sponsored links (see the next point).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. If a link is classified as sponsored when it\u2019s not, then the impact will be reduced. Google says: \u201c\u2026 we\u2019ll see that hint but the impact \u2014 if any at all \u2014 would be at most that we might not count the link as a credit for another page. In this regard, it\u2019s no different than the status quo of many UGC and non-ad links already marked as nofollow.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \n

    Let's be careful here: We do respect nofollow – we don't associate the link with your site.

    However, we may still use the link for discovery.

    That's an important nuance here…<\/p>— Martin Splitt (@g33konaut) February 7, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote>